FOR THE TIME BEING

for Eva, and Olga in her tow.

You had come to visit us, nice idea
after two years or so, we talked
about this and that, our different views,
and new homes, perspectives, plans.
Walking you back to the station
I talked to you about me and by chance
I showed you that abandoned small
store by the railroad tracks,
where parcels, I told you, had been there
at least since I remember, twenty years,

the same parcels and scraps, notebooks
in the dust of a reddish floor, forms,
old notes, a whole accountancy.
You looked through the dirty windows, mesmerised
— I like things left there, you said, I like
what has been forgotten and never changed —
I see you still hopping from window to window
scrutinizing the folds of that buried sky,
I relished your enthusiasm,
you even went beyond the building
where I had never been, I heard you
inspecting the nettles, the rusted tins,
like a child ready for wonders,
like a dog among rotten leaves
smelling its own paradise.
I called you, you couldn’t miss your train,
you came running, leaving eternity
as we all must do,
for the time being.